Drill offshore if necessary, but do it safely

When the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20, 2010, and sank two days later, it killed 11 people and spawned the worst oil spill in U.S. history, gushing 200 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico. Thousands of sea turtles and dolphins and perhaps a million birds perished. States lost an estimated $23 billion in tourism-related dollars.

A blue-ribbon, non-partisan commission of experts investigating the disaster found systemic, oil-industry failures. The primary culprits included BP, which leased the Deepwater Horizon; Transocean, which owned the rig; and Halliburton, which provided the unstable cement sealant that led to the breakdown.

Now the Trump administration, in its rush to reverse Obama-era regulations, wants to roll back the very safeguards put into place following the commission's recommendations — at the same time it is seeking to expand offshore drilling.

OPPOSING VIEW:Energy dominance without sacrificing safety

Scott Angelle, director of the federal bureau responsible for enforcement and a longtime Gulf Coast oil industry advocate, told The Wall Street Journal, "I don't believe there was evidence (the cause of the Deepwater disaster) was a systemic problem." So much for the conclusions of the 400-page examination.

According to The Journal, Angelle would eliminate a requirement that certified, third-party auditors inspect equipment like the blowout preventer that failed on the Deepwater Horizon, and relax rules for streaming real-time oil production data to federal regulators. Such rules are too burdensome on the oil industry, he argues.

Despite a welcome increase in renewable energy from wind and solar, the nation continues to rely overwhelmingly on fossil fuels and will do so for some time. Thanks to fracking and shale oil production, U.S. energy independence is tantalizingly close, though nearly 20% of net imports still flow from unstable areas of the world such as the Middle East. 

Steps taken by Congress and the president to open up oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and to 90% of America's coastal waters could finally provide the nation with secure sources of domestic energy well into the future, even as renewable sources continue to grow. 

Angelle argues, in essence, that the oil industry can be trusted to police itself. Lifting these restrictions, he says, would save the industry $228 million over 10 years.

That would be good for the industry, but not necessarily for the environment. As the Deepwater commission noted, "To be allowed to drill on the outer continental shelf is a privilege to be earned, not a private right to be exercised. ... Industry self-policing is not a substitute for government ... and the cost of forgetting that essential premise can be calamitous."

So it can. Two decades before the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck a reef in 1989, befouling Alaska's pristine Bristol Bay. New environmental regulations followed. 

America needs oil, preferably from domestic sources. But the oil must be extracted carefully, with input from coastal states and under close government oversight. As Ronald Reagan used to say, trust but verify.

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